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Why liberals can’t cope with insurance

Because they cannot comprehend the concept that insurance requires a spreading of risk and if you allow adverse selection, costs will escalate considerably to the detriment of all the insured.

Instead they use words like “discriminate” to describe underwriting. And they equate the cost of insuring the old and sick with “exorbitant” premiums.

Here’s the deal; if you are going to pay the health care bills for the old, and the sick and anyone else who incurs health care bills, your premiums are going to feel exorbitant to any average person who uses little or no health care. What the naïve left does not get is clearly expressed in their own text below; “During the initial rollout of the ACA, however, the insurance industry partnered with both consumer groups and the Obama administration. Their efforts helped increase enrollment and smoothed a difficult first open enrollment period. ” In other words, during the initial enrollment everyone ignored the common sense rules of insurance. And a few years later we now see the consequences … it’s called adverse selection with resulting “exorbitant” (ha!) premiums.

Here is how the Center for American Progress describes health insurance:

Before the passage of the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, the health insurance industry was like the Wild West, where anything goes. Health insurance companies could discriminate against the old and the ill, keep the sick quarantined in separate pools, and deny coverage for some of the most essential benefits. If insurers did not deny coverage to the old and sick altogether, they restricted their benefits or charged them exorbitant premiums. During the initial rollout of the ACA, however, the insurance industry partnered with both consumer groups and the Obama administration. Their efforts helped increase enrollment and smoothed a difficult first open enrollment period.

Now keep in mind all this adverse selection and the related costs occur regardless of the type of insurance or even if it is a government program. Costs are costs and they are reflected in premiums or taxes or both. That’s a key point that the empathetic minded left chooses to ignore.

The Center of American Progress left off the last sentence: “We thank you, the American taxpayers and insured individuals who do not have significant medical expenses, for paying more, much more, so that Congress could buy the votes of “the old, the sick, the ill” with you money in the form of government-provided subsidies.